This application is based on and claims the benefit of German Patent Application No. 198 10 626.2 filed Mar. 12, 1998, which is incorporated by reference herein.
The invention relates to a method for allocating malfunction reports to the involved network operator in a telecommunications (TK) network with a plurality of sub-networks operated by different network operators in a multi-operator environment.
In countries with a telecommunications monopoly, a uniform dial number with subsequent user guidance and allocation to the respective department of the monopolist is currently offered. In Germany today, for example, Deutsche Telekom (DT AG) has a malfunction reception department for malfunctions in its network. This reception department forwards malfunction reports to the corresponding offices which isolate, determine and correct the malfunctions. All offices, however, are located within one company, in this example within DT AG.
Liberalization of the telecommunications market is now leading to a plurality of network operators competing within a telecommunications network. Furthermore, the affiliation of a TK subscriber with a specific network operator in a future "German fixed network", which will include several network operators, will no longer be identifiable from the dial number alone. Even if dial number blocks were to be allocated to the network operators, a specific subscriber could still be a ported subscriber.
In case of a malfunction, it is easily possible that a TK subscriber wants to, or has to, use a third party connection to report a malfunction in his own connection. It is also possible that a TK subscriber wants to report the malfunction of a third party connection which may be very remote from his own. In case of a third party connection, however, the probability increases that the connection falls into the area of a different network, operator. In this case, the TK subscriber reporting the malfunction would generally not have the dial number available for the respective malfunction reception point of the specific sub-network.
Furthermore, the "third party network operator" is not interested in processing a malfunction report at no charge for another network operator and is very rarely in a position to do so.